"Waugh torn saga"...

A review of the film Brideshead Revisited (PG) by reviewer Barry Gittins.

This movie, based on Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel, is a morality play based on the twin hungers of the narrator, Charlie Ryder (played by Matthew Goode): Charlie' consuming ambition to succeed and his hunger to be loved. 

Charlie is a talented young painter and self-declared atheist who's been stunted of emotional support at home; he needs to be embraced and endorsed. In short, like all of us, he needs to be loved.

After setting his sails for university life, Charlie pursues that dual need in friendships/relationships with uber-rich Catholic peer-to-be, the gayer than gay Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw ), and Sebastian's sharp as a tack sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell).
 
All the while young Charlie feels he is falling in love, and falling in covetous lust for the amazing castle and grounds of the Marchmain family, Brideshead itself, he must negotiate the perilous grounds of 'Mummy', the icy Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson), the run-away-to-venice father, Lord Marchmain (Michael Gambon) and his genuinely compassionate mistress, Cara (the character, whose name means 'a friend' in Gaelic, 'love' in Cornish and 'the beloved one' in Italian, is played exquisitely by Greta Scacchi).
 
Whereas Tina Turner once queried 'what's luurve got to do , got to do with it?', the nature of love is central to this film, which Waugh once descirbed as ' the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters'.
 
Self-absorbed, selfish, for th most part, the upper class bods as represented in the film are completely oblivious to the needs of their families and friends, let alone the deep chasms between their luxuries and the plight of the poor. The suffocating mother love of Lady Marchmain (captured brilliantly by Thompson) seeks to control all within and beyond her orbit; her understanding and practice of Christian faith is cold, unyielding and guilt-edged. 

 
This is contrasted remarkably well with that of Cara - a 'sinner' who knows she does wrong, yet shows more grace and forgiveness to others than the rest of the cast combined.
 

This brings us to a discussion of the portrayal of the Catholic Chruch and the Christian faith in general. The narrator, Charles, vents his spleen often, in emotional harangues about the hypocrisy and cruelty he witnesses. At the same time, however, through the good offices of Waugh's complex source material, Charlie is forced to concede that faith is a copnstant source of hope for the family he preys on, and a source of strength in trying times.
 
Charlie, with the filmgoers, is asked to assess Christianity: is it a 'pie in the sky' bit of escapism, or a source of genuine hope for those who face the abyss? The film's answer is not something you can nail to a church door somewhere.
 
There are times when the movie is scathing on the nature of faith and other times, especially with Greta Scachhi’s character, where you see faith as the life preserver that keeps us from drowning in our sorrows.

This is a riveting if slowly-paced movie. We are presented with 'as large as life' truths about guilt, deep need, loss, desire and constancy.
No-one is seen to be acting with complete selflessness, suggesting the characters, as in real life, flesh and blood human beings, are nuanced in their reasons and choices. That’s hardly a earth-shattering or new revelation (the Bible declares that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory).

We must needs return to the psychological development and portrayal of our friend Chuck; is Charles Ryder an honest man in a kingdom of liars, or a ruthless social climber, or a combination of the two polar extremes? That’s’ the viewer’s call.

The movie follows in the much-loved wake of a 1981 TV mini-series.
Casting-wise, the magic box offered us a young Jeremy Irons as Charlie and the urbane Anthony Andrews as a feistier Lord Sebastian.
 
You can make a veritable shopping list of differences between the film adaptation and the TV series; the sprawling TV effort was seen as a faithful rendering to the novel and the movie has attracted some criticisms of its screenplay and suggestions that it has eliminated or reversed some of Evelyn Waugh’s original intentions.

 I’d say, for depth, 'go' the mini-series; for strength of characterisation and religious nuances pick the film.

Another talking point revolves arounfd the film's rating of PG (in the US, as usual, the film receievd a 'heavier' rating; of PG-13, which would be the equivalent of an Australian M for mature audience rating).
 
The PG rating, for 'mild sexual references, themes and nudity', reflects a growing social acceptance (for good and ill, from a parent's perspective) that sexuality is a central part of most human lives.

If you are going to take the subjects raised by this film seriously then you need to establish what it is exactly that the 'rich young rulers' feel guilty about, and what role sexuality plays in the lives of the characters portrayed.
 
To avoid the realities of heterosexual and homosexual relationships in the novel would be a cowardly, poor effort on the film-makers. I personally think they handle it with discretion and reserve.
In all, Brideshead Revisited gives us two hours and 14 minutes of soul searching from a Christian artist who was very much a tortured seeker of truth – that ain’t a bad thing. Barry Gittins